


Game, Rules of the

by umbrafix



Series: Things that ought to have been in the series but were tragically left out [4]
Category: Endeavour (TV)
Genre: Episode Related, Episode Tag, Gen, Missing Scene
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-12
Updated: 2017-01-14
Packaged: 2018-09-17 02:18:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 2,489
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9299756
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/umbrafix/pseuds/umbrafix
Summary: Missing scenes from Series 4:1, Game, focusing on Morse, Thursday and Win





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Spoilers for series 4 episode 1 :)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> While Thursday and Morse are waiting for the computer to spit out the results about ‘Ashton/Ashford’ we see a shot of them asleep on the couches. This is set before/during that.

Thursday had turned down Morse’s offer to get him some food – not hungry, he’d said. So Morse had wandered out to the nearest chippy and eaten outside rather than coming back with it, cold wind tugging at the newspaper half-unwrapped around his food. He’d wiped off his greasy fingers on the paper (and his trousers), and, after meandering back more slowly than he ought, found Thursday in the group’s meeting room at the lab, gazing aimlessly at nothing.

 

Morse had taken the other sofa, sprawling his legs wide and lacing his hands together over his stomach. There was no sign that Thursday had noticed him at all, so he let his own eyes drift, examining the room, going over the details of the cases in his head again. He was sure there must be some way of finding-

 

“Alright?” Thursday’s voice was rusty, as though he hadn’t spoken in hours. Morse turned, but Thursday’s eyes were on the floor still, and for a moment Morse wasn’t sure if the question had been addressed to him at all.

 

“Fine.”

 

“Mmm.”

 

Feeling suddenly restless, Morse got to his feet and did a slow circuit of the room. It was when he moved behind Thursday that the other man showed the first true sign of movement, craning his head to try and see him.

 

“What are you doing?”

 

“Just thinking.”

 

“Well, don’t. It’s doing my bloody head in. Sit down, we’ll be here all night.”

 

Morse sat, mulish. It wasn’t as though he hadn’t offered to stay by himself – Thursday could have gone home. But Thursday had been quick to deny the possibility, almost as though he didn’t want to. He hadn’t even been the one to ring his wife to let her know, telling Morse to do it.

 

Morse hadn’t even been able to hear her voice on the phone without feeling a sick wave of guilt.

 

Now they sat together in terse silence for a while, listening to the ticks and whirs of machinery from the other room as they waited for Jason to complete its work. Morse clamped down on the urge to speak again and again, feeling sharp words build up on his tongue and his face grow taut with the effort to keep them in.

 

“There’s no point keeping this up,” Thursday said abruptly, and Morse pressed his lips together in a thin line. A heartbeat later, “We’ve got a case to solve.”

 

They’d managed neutrality through chasing down this lead, since Thursday’s unexpected support of him in the office. But Thursday’s words poked at raw wounds, and Morse cast him a sour glance.

 

“We’re here, aren’t we?” Morse said.

 

“Not exactly giving it your all, fraternisation with journalists aside.”

 

“ _I’m_ not giving my all-“

 

Thursday’s brows dropped, his voice turned clipped. There went all pretence of civility, then. “Don’t you start with me!”

 

“I’ve just been doing as I was told, _sir_. Wouldn’t want to get ideas above my station.” Belligerent, sarcastic, _hurt_. Morse felt as uncomfortably transparent as a pane of glass.

 

“Morse-“ But Morse turned his face away, stared unblinkingly at the potted plant on the other side of the room.

 

Neither spoke for a while, and the tightness of his jacket across his shoulders graduated from a niggle to a full blown nuisance. Damned if Morse was going to sit here in his jacket all night.

 

His arm snagged in the sleeve as he tugged it off, and his ears burned red at his lack of grace. Not normally something he’d worry about in front of Thursday, but the sting of the comment about his lack of revision still burned under Morse’s skin. That Thursday had been so uncaring and quick to judge, to leap to the assumption that Morse wasn’t good enough and not pay attention for two seconds to learn the truth. Though paying attention for two seconds together seemed to have been generally beyond Thursday’s grasp of late.

 

Jacket off, he darted his eyes briefly towards Thursday, took in the look fixed on him and the lack of expression.

 

“What?” he asked. “Done something else wrong? You should-“

 

“Oh, shut up,” Thursday said wearily. A second later he added, “Jesus, I can’t look at you.” He turned his gaze away from Morse and stared blankly into space. “I can’t look at you and know you’re the one let my Joan get away.”

 

\----------------

 

The brightness of the artificial lights burned his eyes as Morse jerked awake sometime later, drawing in breath to shout. His eyes flicked to the ceiling, to the door, to the sofa, to the-

 

“It’s alright, lad. Go back to sleep.”

 

His eyes locked on to Thursday’s dark gaze a few feet away. He shifted, mouth stretching in a not-quite yawn, and settled, eyelids drooping until sleep claimed him again.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Set near the end, after Morse goes into the water after the killer

Morse was alone with the wet, rasping breaths of Alexander for some time. The darkness clung around him, a bank of fog sweeping in and settling like a cloud around them. Only the sound of his teeth clattering together told him he was shivering, and he snapped out of it to catalogue the both of them.

 

He was soaked through and through, with a bump to the head that caused a wave of dizziness as he hauled himself up to stand.

 

Alexander was still breathing.

 

Good enough.

 

After eying the unconscious man for a moment, trying to decide whether he could be left alone, Morse started a stumbling walk back in the direction he’d come. At least, he hoped it was the direction he’d come – ten feet into the trees and he was completely disorientated.

 

 _Leaving a murderer_ , his mind whispered lazily.

 

His legs locked in place and he looked over his shoulder, because Christ, what was he doing?

 

“I need help here,” he yelled as loudly as he could, and retraced his path in the curling wisps of fog.

 

He had gotten a bit lost after all, because he broke out of the trees some way down the water line. It was enough to let him follow it, though, to see the dark shape of the boathouse loom up in front of him.

 

And a body on the ground, right where Morse had left him.

 

Heaving a sigh of relief, Morse grappled to get Alexander’s unresponsive, heavy limbs lifted and cuffed him. The sight of gleaming steel around his wrists gave a strange sense of security – largely a false one, of course. Proving Morse was just as susceptible to symbolism as the rest of the world.

 

“Over here,” he called, straining his voice to be heard.

 

He gave a moment’s frivolous consideration to sitting on Alexander, to stealing his warmth rather than coming in contact with the cold and muddy bank.

 

The fog tumbled around him, his own breath misting the air to join it. “Here,” he called again, but this time hopelessly. He rubbed his hands up and down his sodden shirtsleeves, and stamped his feet to try and ward off the chill.

 

He watched the murderer on the ground before him, the innocence of his face now that the madness was screened behind closed eyelids

 

He wondered if _he_ would refuse to believe he was crazy, if everyone around him told him that his mind and senses were wrong.

 

\------------------

 

“Morse?” came distantly through the fog, so faint that Morse almost thought he really was hallucinating.

 

He straightened from his slouch against the side of the boathouse, where he’d been standing guard over the lump of Alexander on the ground some few feet off.

 

His head turned, his ears strained…

 

“Morse?”

 

“Here,” he tried to say, but had to clear the tightness in his throat and try again. “Here!” he said more strongly. His eyes scanned the night, but found nothing but the dark stripes of trees amongst the mist, lit dimly by the moon.

 

“Morse.”

 

“This way. By the boathouse.”

 

“Boathouse, he says. What boathouse?”

 

“I think I’m to your left.”

 

There was what might have been the rustling of feet on leaves, then, “Is it safe?”

 

Eyebrows raised, Morse checked the body again, nudging it with a toe just to be sure. “Yes,” he called. “He’s unconscious.”

 

“That’s how I prefer my nutcases.” This at more normal volume, and two shadowy figures came into view.

 

Thursday and Dorothea Frazil. Blood traced a line down from her forehead, and her eyes were wide. Thursday didn’t look much better off – mussed clothing and hair accompanying a haunted expression.

 

“She wouldn’t stay in the car,” he explained at Morse’s quick glance.

 

“Of course I wouldn’t,” Miss Frazil said. Then gave a short, theatric shudder. “Though it certainly would have been warmer.

 

“I’ve called in an ambulance and backup; they’ll be here soon.”Thursday’s eyes travelled over Morse, apparently reassured by what they found. “We’ll send you after all the crazy killers then – look at you, not a scratch!”

 

Morse gave an uncomfortable half-smile and scratched the back of his neck, the tips of his fingers sliding upwards of their own volition to ghost over the raised lump where he’d been hit with a brick.

 

Thursday noticed. “Bit wet though,” was all he said.

 

Morse cleared his throat. “He took a dive into the river – bricks in his pockets. Trying to go out in the same way as his sister, I suppose.” He hesitated a moment. “He said he could hear her telling him things.”

 

“Right nutter,” Thursday said, but softly. “Well done, Morse.”

 

The warm feeling the praise engendered was strangled and painful, not to be trusted.

  


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Episode tag: After Morse offers Mrs Thursday a lift.

The question about Joan lingered in the air for a minute, and Morse tilted his head down and tried to let it go. It wasn’t as though he had any right to her, anyway.

 

“Where can I drop you?” he asked, and put the car into gear.

 

She gave an address not too far out of his way. “I’ve got a job in an office.”

 

He gave a short smile and kept his eyes on the road. He probably should have asked about the job – she’d not had one a week ago, so it must be new. Or there was always talking about the weather – he squinted up through the windshield and thought it looked like rain.

 

She didn’t say anything either, however, fiddling quietly with the straps of her handbag.

 

He pulled up outside the address she’d given him some fifteen minutes later – traffic hadn’t been bad except on the corner near the station – and managed a short nod and a smile in her direction.

 

People bustled by on the pavement outside. There was a low swoosh swoosh swoosh of the constant stream of cars passing them.

 

She made no move to leave the car. Eventually he cleared his throat and leant back in his seat, letting go of his grip on the steering wheel.

 

“Mrs Thursday?”

 

“I do miss her,” she said all in a rush, as though the words were impelled out of her.

 

He gaped at her, astonished.

 

The silence stretched for a moment, and she looked out of the window, then back to mumble her next words into her lap. “I know that it doesn’t seem… but I do!”

 

He wet his lips. “I… never doubted it.”

 

Now her eyes flashed up to meet his, and he saw grief and loss and shame. And dignity, and pride. “I’ve been trying to carry on, you see,” she said, and he nodded quick agreement. “She’ll come back, I know she will. But we have to keep going in the meantime.”

 

It had the sound of something she’d been repeating to herself in the last couple of weeks.

 

“I understand,” he said, because he  _did_. Work had been a refuge for him of late, the events of his missing exam paper and Thursday’s abominable attitude notwithstanding,

 

“Yes,” she said, and they sat quietly. Then, “What if she  _doesn’t_?” And her voice broke, and his stomach clenched.

 

“She will,” he said strongly, although he wasn’t sure how much confidence he had in the words.

 

“It isn’t even her leaving – she’s a big girl, she can take care of herself! If she was moving in with a friend or getting married I wouldn’t be worried. But like this! As though she couldn’t bear to be near us. To talk to us. Running off into the night, gone who knows where, and what if she isn’t safe? What if my baby…”

 

There was a half-choked sob, then he saw her visibly suppress the tears, her hand forming a small, delicate fist over her mouth.

 

“No,” he said, and it was a denial of even the possibility, as though he’d never had worries of his own. “No, she’s alright, I promise you. She won’t have gone off without somewhere she knew she could stay. And,” he added after a moment, “she’ll be in touch as soon as she’s had a bit of time to think. I’m sure she will.”

 

Mrs Thursday let out a muted hiccoughing breath, and then she unwound from how she’d hunched in on herself and her hand came to softly pat Morse on the arm.

 

“You are a good lad, aren’t you?” she said. “Fred’s always said you were one of the good ones.” The sudden warmth in her tone almost made him blush, but the corners of his mouth twitched down at the thought of Thursday.

 

She read more into his silence than he was comfortable with. “He’s been having a rough time of it. Not eating. Not doing anything.”

 

The intimacy of the comment  stymied him for a moment, leaving him feeling tongue-tied. “Well, he’s, ah, he’s been…” He reached out and tapped his fingers against the steering wheel. “He’s had all this to deal with.”

 

“I’ve been worried about him,” she confessed quietly. “He’s not been himself, but he won’t talk about it.”

 

Morse hummed non-committally.

 

“I thought he was probably coping with it by throwing himself into his work, but he’s been coming home  _early_.”

 

Morse opened his mouth, closed it again. Chewed the words over twice before speaking. “He’s been off at work, too. Distracted, not… interested.”

 

She must have heard the strain in his voice, because she patted his arm again. “If he’s been taking it out on anyone at the station, love, then it’s not because-“

 

“I know,” he interrupted. “I know.” After a moment’s pause, “It’s alright now. And I think solving this one has helped.”

 

“Given him something to get stuck into,” she said fondly. “And feel proud about solving. You’re all the same.”

 

He half-smiled.

 

The first few drops of rain splatted wet and fat on the windscreen, and he peered out at the clouds. “You should probably make a run for it,” he said,

 

Her bag and coat were scooped up, and she paused with her hand on the door handle.

 

“Thank you,” she said, and before he could say anything else she was gone.

 

\------------------------

 

The End

**Author's Note:**

> This is the first time I've watched an episode for the first time taking notes as I go. Nonetheless, they were rough notes, because I was busy with the Endeavour-ness, so apologies for any mistakes.


End file.
